Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Bread challenge

I have initiated a bread challenge. Challenger: myself. Challenged: myself. Challenge: bake a new loaf of bread every week this fall and winter until I've made every loaf of bread in my recipe catalogue. And yes, I will be doing them all by hand, in pans or on my baking stone. Electric bread makers are for whiners.

The vast bulk of my bread recipes are in my 1970s Better Homes & Gardens binder. The other recipes will come from Ina Garten's books, and she doesn't have too many, so I won't list them here; in fact, I'll probably make them in conjunction with the matching BH&G recipes to see which one I like better.

Here is a list of the breads I'll be baking, falling into two categories: yeast breads and quick breads.

Yeast breads*

Easy-mix white bread

White bread (conventional method)

French bread

Molasses-oatmeal bread

Rye bread

German stollen

Cheese bread

Swedish limpa

Pumpernickel

Anadama bread

Russian black bread

Egg bread

Julekage

Cardamom braid

Peasant bread

Kuchen

Chocolate swirl coffee cake

Cinnamon crisps

Sweet rolls (various flavors)

Yeast doughnuts

Hot cross buns

Bismarcks (various fillings)

Dinner rolls (various shapes)

Bagels (various flavors)

Breadsticks

Croissants

Brioche

Soft pretzels

Pita bread (various flavors)

Batter rolls

Sourdough bread

Orange-cinnamon sourdough rolls

* I have already made whole wheat bread and potato bread, so while I may make them again during the challenge, I will not be blogging them again.

And to kick off the bread challenge, I made a sourdough starter (recipe from Better Homes & Gardens binder), which is a yeast fermentation that you need in order to make sourdough bread. It is super easy to start, although watching over it in the coming weeks will probably be the more challenging part.

You begin by heating up 2 1/2 cups of water to 110-115 degrees. Put 1/2 cup of the water into a bowl with one package of yeast and stir together until smooth.

Then add the rest of the water, as well as 2 cups of flour and 1 tbsp. of honey. (You can also use sugar in place of honey, but I thought honey would taste better.) It's a little lumpy at first:

But whisk it together for a few minutes until it is nice and smooth, like this:

Cover with a cheesecloth and store at room temperature to ferment.

The fermentation process is somewhat intensive. You keep it at room temperature for 5 to 10 days, until it starts to become bubbly. During this time, you stir it 2-3 times per day. When it's fermented, you store it in the fridge with the cheesecloth still over it. You can't cover it, or the yeast will basically suffocate. (Remember that this mixture is essentially alive.) This seems more labor intensive than keeping plants in the house!

Once it's fermented, I will use it in a sourdough loaf. However, I will only need 1 cup of the starter for each loaf. You can keep the starter alive indefinitely by continuing to feed it, as bizarre as that sounds. Here's what Better Homes & Gardens suggests:

"To replenish Starter after using, stir 3/4 cup all purpose flour, 3/4 cup water, and 1 tsp. sugar or honey into remaining amount. Cover; let stand at room temperature at least 1 day or till bubbly. Refrigerate for later use. If Starter isn't used within 10 days, stir in 1 tsp. sugar or honey. Repeat every 10 days until used."

Weird. I wonder how Dave will feel about me keeping a living blob of yeast in the fridge. I guess this was an appropriate project for Halloween...

About the blog

This is a chronicle of my journey through cookbooks. There will be successes, failures, tasty treats, and a great likelihood that many messes will be made. I will cook, bake, chop, chill, whip, chiffonade, and broil until I have mastered the techniques from my favorite chefs.

I will have friends write some guest posts, as well, so if you are interested in writing about a dish you made, let me know.